


Enough

by yeoltidecarol



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Image, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 05:25:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19717111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeoltidecarol/pseuds/yeoltidecarol
Summary: You’ve admired your co-worker for a long time, often to the point of viewing him as someone unattainable. The morning after you slept together, you think about self-worth, beauty, and remind yourself of your power.





	Enough

When you wake, your body still feels him. 

The morning burns, seeping through the linen of your curtains to cast irregular shadows on the walls, adding to the difference of the day. This moment, this new outlook on life is different - not bad, not good, just different. Irrevocably changed by hands that have somehow learned to hold you. Beneath the sheets, your body feels warm, handled in a way you forgot was possible. Lately, men have kissed at you, curled around you either too much or too little - wanting you, all the while reminding you that you are unneeded.

Last night, Chanyeol touched you, felt you, pressed himself against and inside you deep enough, hard enough, that he lingers now as an enduring echo. Your skin tingles with him, with the press of his fingers into your hips, the shuddering breath he left against your collarbone, still making you tremble, even as the dawn urges you to let him go. 

You knew it would be this way with him. You did not expect anything less.

For months, you watched him in the office, studied him and all the things he sometimes tries to hide, or does not know how to hide. He’s hard to miss - tall and laughing louder than anyone else in the room; asymmetrical with ears too big for his head and legs that bow out, but you would not fathom him any other way. He’s hard to miss, but his soul is. 

In meetings, he fidgets - not because he’s bored, but because he’s created answers through and around the problem and has been told to wait. In silence, he is pensive, frowning at himself and the magnitude of his thoughts, anxious to give and give until someone allows him to receive. In work ethic, he is diligent, so unlike the noise of his personality, dedicated to correctness, to perfection, and often exhausted from the pressure of achieving both. 

And he’s beautiful - too beautiful to truly perceive, wearing his complexities as though they are badges of honor and too self-aware to truly be proud. On him, proud is a pretense, the knowledge that he can and will win, but unsure if he truly deserves the prize. On him, pride is empty, shallow, and presented only because someone told him it should.

For months, you watched him, eyes tracing his but never truly meeting.

For months, you watched him, and only with four drinks in your blood were you able to tell him this was so.

But now, as the memories of the night before flood - the way he spread your thighs, groaning that he was hard enough to hurt for you; the way he licked at your center, thirsty for the clench of your walls against his tongue; the way he thrust into you, one arm wrapped around your waist to keep your chest on his, desperate for your heart - you did not expect him to stay. At the sight of him beside you, wetness grows at your core, remembering how it felt to be full of him. You crave him there again, stretched full and showing him just how powerful you are when the sun gives you wings, and know that sex and lust feel different when light does not let you hide. 

You crave him there, but he may not crave you. 

People don’t want you this way. Not enough to take their time and certainly not enough to stay. You are a transient thing, someone who experiences sex as though it is an eclipse, and watches bodies move towards and away from your body. If you’re honest, you’ve grown accustomed to being the moon, with waxing and waning against someone’s orbit until they no longer look to see if you are full. You are comfortable and you’ve accepted it. 

Everyone has a season, and yours glimmers just like gold. 

Turning over in the bed, your cover yourself up to your neck with the sheets, and watch the mess of his hair shiver gently against your pillow with the rhythm of his breath. In the sunlight, he is glorious and glowing, seemingly unaware of the control he has over your heart, aloof in all the ways you find endearing. It’s hard to know when you fell or how for him, somewhen in the days spent watching and waiting, suddenly no longer being able to discern the difference between the two. It only matters that you did, that you have, and that it’s important you remind yourself you are not unworthy. 

It doesn’t make sense that he should be different, someone whose hardness contrasts so harshly with your softness; someone who grows muscle, and not marks. Someone who cannot wear his clothes in the morning or appear small beneath the fabric of a hoodie; someone whose breasts only just fit in the palm of his hand and remind him that he is large only because you let yourself see him this way. It doesn’t make sense, but the world has never truly been comprised of logic or motive, only of actions that bleed into reactions, an endless course of collisions that birth new modes being. 

Today, you think you are majestic.

Today, you know you are the only one who could properly hold the totality of him.

Today, you are aware that you deserve someone who hungers for the totality of you. 

And so you pull yourself away from him, letting your fingers card through his hair one last time, knowing that you do not need this to remember only that you want it and are letting yourself have it. You pull away and head for your shower, knowing that the pressure of water against tile is enough to rouse anyone from slumber, and this is his opportunity to leave and still offer your dignity. 

The hardwood is cold against your toes, and you take the top blanket with you, covering your body as you quietly make your way to the bathroom. Leaning out to check on the bed, you find he has not moved from the slight change in temperature, content as though the side of the bed belongs to him alone. 

Shutting the door and turning the shower on, you regard yourself in the mirror as you let the water get warm. 

You are not unpretty. 

In truth, there is no one on earth who could not, would not, be beautiful. Beauty is an indeterminate thing, an impossible thing to hold and something that often comes down to actions. It speaks for itself, in bounds, and while you are not, and will not ever be small, slim, conventional, you are full, and joyful, and welcoming. The heart in your chest speaks in the sound of your voice and you are glad you let yourself be heard, though often you wonder who it is that listens. 

You are not unpretty. And you are not unworthy.

You are magic and power and fortitude, a reckoning force that creates what you choose to make and this is why you are deserving. It is not for him to choose you, you tell yourself, only for him to learn to receive. 

Stepping into the shower, you smile and sigh.

Beneath the warm flow of water, you let yourself get drenched. 

By thoughts. By the way the light can change things. By the impatience that comes with waiting for answers.

Light changes things - this is your primary thought. Light makes things glow, bloom, shine; but it also exposes. It sears its way into corners that cower away, neither ugly nor foul, simply raw. In the dark, where all things are equal, it is easy to take what you have earned. And in the light, it is easy to say you do not want it because it hurts. 

The light plays with you like this, and you think you are best in the full rays of the sun. 

The light plays with you, and you are glad for the power of choosing how you gleam. 

You’re pulled from your thoughts by the sound of the door opening, the shuffling of feet against the tile muffled beneath the sound of water. His shadow lingers behind the glass, shifting from foot to foot, uncertain, before sliding it open and greeting you with a smile. 

Eyes still bleary with sleep, he offers you a small, boyish smile as he steps inside. He’s awkward with the placement of his limbs in the small space, and for a moment you giggle, never having had someone with such a wingspan shower with you. For a long moment, you simply look at him, marveling at how he holds your stare, unhurried for the rest of you the way so many partners are. He luxuriates in seeing you, smiling at you, stepping closer until he pulls you to his chest and rests his forehead against yours, contented by the bliss of your touch. 

‘I was lonely when I woke up,’ he murmurs, lips moving against the tip of your nose. ‘You should have told me you were going.’

It’s difficult not to giggle at the pout that tugs on his expression, softening his cheeks and lips until your skin hurts from not touching his face. Sliding your fingers up his arms, you watch the way your hands leave smears of wetness against his veins and tattoos, mystified. 

‘Did you sleep okay?’ It’s an absentminded question, even though you mean it. Permission has been granted to lose yourself in him, and you choose to savor feel of his palms against your back. 

How odd, you think, to truly, finally be held. How odd, and how extraordinary. 

He nods against you momentarily before stepping back to grab your shampoo. ‘Best I’ve had in ages, to be honest.’

Gently, he turns you in his hands, and you hear him gather some shampoo in his palms before his fingers move through your hair. Electricity walks down your spine, sending spark along your synapses that make your toes feel numb. It’s hard to say if you’ve ever been taken care of this way, if you’ve ever let yourself be nurtured, but he takes to it with as much diligence as anything you’ve seen him passionate about, and you bite the inside of your cheek to fight off words of thanks. 

You deserve to be treasured this way, you think. It’s just impossible to believe it would be him. 

Silence befalls you both as he continues to wash your hair, shaping the strands into irregular objects just to make you laugh. Frenetic as he is, it’s not long until he begins to hum, an unidentifiable arrangement born of pleasure overflowing from his chest and washing over you like honey. You could die this way, you think, wrapped in ecstasy and held by hope. 

But then, with a reverence that borders on paradise, he moves your hair from your shoulder and gently, lightly, presses a kiss to your neck. You lean into it, hands seeking his as his arms wrap around your waist, certain that you will slip, weakened by the affection. Running his nose along your skin, he sighs, kissing what he can until he reaches your ear. 

‘You’ve got a cute butt.’

Laughter erupts from your chest, body molding to liquid fire as you turn to face him. 

All boldness disappears from his features as a blush stains his cheeks, teeth coming to bite his bottom lip in shyness. Blinking away water, unsure of the reality, you gently reach a hand to cup his cheek, and sigh as it’s his turn to lean into you, both of you feeling exposed.

‘You make me feel vulnerable,’ you admit, surprised that your voice does not shake. 

‘I mean…’ he begins, voice trailing off into the distance. He pauses momentarily, idly shifting to press a kiss to your palm before he continues. ‘Me too.’

Stepping closer, you wrap your arm around his waist, trailing your fingers over his spine. ‘Why did you stay?’

Chanyeol pouts. ‘Did you want me to leave?’

‘No,’ you shake your head, shrugging. ‘I just didn’t know what you wanted.’

Moving to hold your face in his hands, he presses a light kiss to your forehead, nose, and lips. It’s brief, altogether too chaste for the way his mouth explored your folds the night before, but it’s enough to know he’s serious. 

‘I want you,’ he says, firmly, searching your eyes for slivers of rejection. ‘I’ve wanted you. I wanted to stay.’

‘I want you to stay, too.’ 

Today, you think, this is enough.

You are always enough.

**Author's Note:**

> cross posted from my tumblr: https://yeoldontknow.tumblr.com/post/183255473563/enough-m


End file.
